Trump plans to stay lawyered-up after Mueller as Manhattan federal prosecutors burrow into his business

published 26 February 2019

Whenever Special Counsel Robert Mueller wraps up his investigation, President Trump knows that will only "be a new beginning, not a dramatic end, for Trumpworld's eclectic legal hellscape," and so he's asked his outside legal team to stay on indefinitely, The Daily Beast reports. Trump faces multiple House investigations, lawsuits over emoluments in Maryland and Washington, D.C., and other legal problems, but Trump's big worry is federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, or SDNY. It is generally agreed he is right to be concerned.

"The Southern District of New York investigation is monumentally more perilous to the president than Bob Mueller ever was or ever will be," former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Trump ally, told ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. "They have two tour guides, George, and no restriction on where they could go." Elie Mystal, editor of Above the Law, compared Trump's legal jeopardy to The Revenant on MSNBC's The Beat Monday night. "SDNY is the bear, and the Trump Organization is like Leonardo DiCaprio, and this time we're not sure that the bear's gonna let him go," he told Ari Melber. Former federal prosecutors Joyce Vance added that if Southern District prosecutors "have to play a role in this passion play, I'd set them up to be The Avengers."

Former Trump friend and tenant Donny Deutsch was even more direct on NBC Late Night last week, telling Seth Meyers he thinks the Southern District is "going to what I call RICO him, which is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, where if you're at the top of an organization that anybody in it is doing illicit things, you go to jail. I think that they will take him apart. I think they will take his buildings away, he'll be nothing left." He said Trump "should be panicked," then repeated it to the camera. Watch below. Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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